MINNEAPOLIS -- Believe your eyes.

That’s what prosecutor Jerry Blackwell said in his opening statement on March 29, 2021, to the jurors who would decide whether Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.

“You can believe your eyes, that it’s homicide, it’s murder,” said Blackwell, now a U.S. District Court judge....Read more

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, guarantees each person the freedom to speak out, untethered by government, in addition to freedom of the press. Yet our society has morphed into a segregated form of free speech that erodes the very essence of such freedom.

Terms like “hate speech” and “ racism�...Read more

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recently proposed 2026-27 state budget included a pleasant surprise: a deficit of about $3 billion — significantly less than analysts had estimated. But when it comes to California state budgets, good news rarely lasts. Newsom’s own estimates warn that the deficit may reach $22 billion in the following fiscal year.

It ...Read more

Federal agents fatally shot another American in Minneapolis on Saturday: 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minnesota VA hospital. Pretti was observing immigration operations and stepped in when an agent threw a woman to the ground. He was tackled by several U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, who repeatedly struck him before ...Read more

President Donald Trump claims that birthright citizenship isn’t that: a birthright. He wants the authority to revoke the citizenship of U.S.-born children of immigrants here illegally and visitors here temporarily.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on birthright citizenship this spring. It will likely hand down a ruling by summer. Before ...Read more

I gave up drinking on Jan. 20, 2025. What has a year without alcohol been like? And has it been worth it?

The world is certainly a more accommodating place for abstainers. But my memories run deep. I still frequent my favorite wine bars where I listen longingly as the sommeliers describe vintages to other customers. It’s like poetry — ...Read more

It should come as little surprise that Bill and Hillary Clinton have defied subpoenas to testify in the U.S. House probe of Jeffrey Epstein. But the fact that even many Democrats have criticized their failure to appear should be a warning to the power couple.

Bill Clinton has a history of thumbing his nose at the legal process. In 1998, he ...Read more

They are leading student walkouts, delivering groceries to frightened families and checking in on friends who are no longer going to school.

Some are the children of undocumented immigrants, putting food on the table because their parents can’t risk leaving the house for work.

As President Donald Trump’s ICE crackdown intensifies in ...Read more

Days after President Donald Trump dropped his tariff threat against eight European countries over their opposition to the United States acquiring Greenland, the self-proclaimed “tariff man” instituted another warning against yet another ally: Canada. “If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against ...Read more

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the local Minneapolis county attorney’s office shouldn’t have had to sue the federal government for access to the evidence from Saturday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents, but in the age of President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, it was ...Read more

If ICE agents can shoot civilians at point-blank range and never be held accountable, then we aren’t living under the rule of law. We’re living in a police state.

The law on the books is extremely clear that Minnesota prosecutors and law enforcement have the authority to investigate and criminally charge Immigration and Customs Enforcement ...Read more

Kristi Noem may have to fall on her sword, but a major reset of how ICE operations in Minneapolis are conducted is the best way to get the country back on track in terms of enforcing immigration law.

The White House said Monday that border czar Tom Homan will oversee Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota and head to ...Read more

California has hundreds of miles of coastline, yet melted snow from other states remains an important source of its water. Perhaps a needed change is on the horizon — one that would even help Nevada.

Interstate negotiations over the Colorado River appear deadlocked. The three Lower Basin states, including Nevada, remain at odds with their ...Read more

“Alexa, will you marry me?” When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reported in 2016 that over 250,000 people had proposed to their Alexa devices, commentators laughed it off. But by 2026, people have said, “I do,” to avatars, chatbots and robots in ceremonies around the world.

The American Marriage Ministries, which certifies marriage ...Read more

This time last year, the hottest Chinese tech product was DeepSeek’s market-moving artificial intelligence model. In 2026, it’s something far simpler: an app for people worried about dying alone.

The bluntly named “Are You Dead?” platform rocketed to the top of the app-store charts in China before going viral globally. The interface is...Read more

With the Newsom Administration and Democrats in charge of the California Legislature slashing funding for a key homeless shelter program by 75% over a two-year period, the Capitol is devoid of any substantive state-local partnership to turn the tide on this chronic crisis. But there is, at least, one idea.

The association that represents ...Read more

Florida woman Pam Bondi has really distinguished herself this time. The U.S. attorney general who famously botched the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files has written a letter to Minnesota’s governor — on Saturday, the same day nurse Alex Pretti was shot dead by immigration agents — in what can only be interpreted as an extortion attempt...Read more

January would have marked the 53rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide — that is, until 2022, when the court overturned it. Since then, abortion has been banned in 13 states and severely limited in 10 others.

Yet anti-abortion activists remain frustrated, in some cases even more so ...Read more